The first 48 hours of a reputation crisis
What to do in order, and the three things that turn a bad day into a bad year.
Preserve everything, establish the facts internally before saying anything externally, decide who speaks, and decide whether to respond at all. The three reliable mistakes are responding before you know the facts, responding defensively, and deleting things. Most items decay on their own; most disasters were made worse by the response.
Hour zero to two: preserve and assess
- Capture everything: URLs, screenshots, view counts, account handles, timestamps. Removal destroys evidence.
- Establish the facts internally. Not the narrative, the facts. What actually happened, with dates and documents.
- Identify who is affected: staff named, customers involved, partners exposed.
- Name one decision-maker and one spokesperson. Confusion about who speaks produces contradictory statements.
Hour two to twelve: decide whether to respond
Responding is a choice, not an obligation. A response converts a small item into a documented event and hands journalists a fresh quote.
Respond when: the claim is spreading beyond its origin, when it is factually false and you can prove it, when someone is at risk, or when silence will be read as confirmation by people who matter. Otherwise, prepare a holding statement and wait.
Never delete. Deleted posts get screenshotted and the deletion becomes the story.
The response is a decision. Silence is also a decision, and it is often the better one.
Hour twelve to forty-eight: contain and monitor
Watch for it jumping platforms, which is the moment scale changes. A Reddit thread reaching TikTok, or a local story reaching a national outlet, is a different situation requiring a different decision.
Brief staff so nobody is answering the phone unprepared. Keep a timestamped log of everything you do; if this becomes a legal or regulatory matter later, that log is valuable.
Removal work starts now for preservation and platform reports, and the harder items are addressed once attention drops. See how long a news cycle lasts.
Common questions
Should we get lawyers involved immediately?
For anything involving safety, regulators, employment or potential litigation, yes. For a bad review, no, and premature legal involvement often escalates it.
Do we tell staff?
Yes, early and factually. They will hear about it, and an informed team is the difference between a controlled response and improvisation.
When do we know it is over?
When new mentions stop and search results stabilise. That is when the durable removal work becomes productive.
Find out if it can come down.
The scan is free and confidential. You get a viability answer on each item, a fixed price, and a timeline. Anything accepted and still published at 14 days is refunded in full.
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Working through this for a business? See Crisis reputation management.